


Longport

by aworldofgoblin



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Awakened Beings, Blood and Violence, Dark, Death, Detectives, Dread, Horror, Lovecraftian, Lovecraftian Monster(s), Madness, Monsters, Mystery, Ocean, Psychological Trauma, Scary, Seaside, Violence, leaching
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-09 20:39:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16456820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aworldofgoblin/pseuds/aworldofgoblin
Summary: A missing man draws a detective into a town he may not get out of and reveals to him the fact that there are things more horrifying than one can imagine.(Here's a little spooky, halloweeny type writing thing since I haven't posted in forever)





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, feel free to give feedback.  
> Suggestions,  
> Criticism,  
> whatever

There was something wrong with the man. The idle chatter he made with himself and the way he abruptly shot his head up to scan the room every minute or so was putting the whole pub on edge. The usual patrons, a hodge-podge of fishermen on shore leave and the most abominable of alcoholic fathers had taken care to allow him the pleasure of three empty bar-stools to either side of his person. Scattered whispers drifted beyond the threshold of his hearing as the thumb fiddling stranger tried to abstain from breaking the glass glass in front of him with his vice like grip.

He was staring down into the swill with acute intensity, as if it were some dark and twisted well. A blessing came in the fact that the bartender had not filled his glass completely, for if he had, the trembling hands that currently held it would have spilt the spirits everywhere. Truthfully, he abhorred the drink. It was a poison that could disease minds and bodies alike, and he had seen it make monsters out of men. But he had adopted it as a companion nonetheless. He wearily gazed into his glass. Beneath the ripples in the dark concoction rose a dark, alien eye that bore into his own.

A great, growing weight formed in his chest as a overwhelming sense of dread and anguish filled him. A fear truer than death encompassed creeped upon him. The black, inky orb viewed him in his entirety, and he felt naked in its indifferent gaze. He blinked. Whatever had turned his skin cold and slick was gone, and for the life of him, he couldn't remember a thing of it. A quick glance at his watch told him that the night had turned old. Not a sip had been taken from his glass, oddly enough. He dug his hand into his coat pocket to fish out whatever tip the bartender would receive that night. Nothing he could give would be enough to make amends for his unsettling presence. The shakey man mumbled a garbled mess of words without meaning, and set the two dollar bill on the counter.

He stepped down from his stool and turned towards the door to find that not a soul was around.

It was as if all life had up and sunk into the floor, leaving him behind in the dreary hole of a pub. It certainly felt that way too, for a familiar chill was beginning to settle onto him. Despite the sudden change in his surroundings, he adhered to his original plan, and headed to the exit, this time with a more swift step than before. But now the door was gone, as if it had never existed in the first place, not in his reality, or any other.

He spun himself around towards the opposite side of the room, opting to head towards the kitchen exit he had spotted on his way in. His was met with a writhing wall of black, fleshy, tendon-like structures that blocked his alternate exit. It came closer, neither by inching forward nor expanding, but as if he was being unwillingly pushed nearer and nearer by some uncaring force. He could hear it now, it was not a voice, or even really a sound in the conventional sense. He heard its hunger, a dull, throbbing force that reverberated throughout his mind. What screams his could force out of his now ripping vocal cords were slowly drowned out by the gluttonous hum of the eldritch mass until it was as if there had never been a time without it.

The world went black, yet he could still see it there, a dreadful monolith that now filled the front of his vision.

His head swelled with pain, more pain than he had ever experienced before. Beneath his scalp, tendrils bloomed in squirming hordes as if planted there by the indifferent, fleshy wall. Probing appendages writhed under the skin, flexing and wiggling like some exotic, horrific parasite. They impassively tore at his skull, flicking and scraping away at the thin layers of bone as if they were paint chips. With his last bits of rational thought he surmised that they were emitting some sort of passifing venom within him, for he could not reach a single hand towards his head to tear at the skin, nor produce so much as a blink. Soon, he could think of nothing but the horror of it all, for as if to entertain themselves, the creatures within him had left the part of his mind that allowed himself to fear. Every other bit of protein-rich brain matter had been eaten away.

He felt his himself being pulled into the wall, and anticipated his doom.

 

 


	2. Chapter 1

It was a full week before anything was written on the subject of the occurrence at the bar. This was not because the event did not come to light swiftly, but because the quaint little newspaper of the town only published on sundays. It was a challenge to have not heard of the odd story by now, of the man that had been banished from existence in a fit of screams. For nearly two weeks the quiet fishing town bubbled with avid gossip, the whole of the population concerned with the odd matter. The fishermen at the docks and the old women on their porches spoke in the same whispered, yet carelessly audible voices. It seemed as if the miraculous tale of the man was being dispersed through every mouth in the community.

But like a firework, the news was flashy, loud, and died out quickly. Not half a month after the incident at the bar, the establishment tested positive for carbon monoxide leakage, and was placed under renovation. The strange happening was disdainfully passed off as a hallucination by way of the leak, and the cherished excitement the story had brought was quelled. Worst of all, the drunks no longer had a place to drown themselves.

 

A rusty, yellow taxi, one you might see growing old in a scrap yard rather than on the road, stopped sharply at the end of a block with a grating squeal. The passenger side door flew open, and a man clambered out of the vehicle as quickly as he could in his bedraggled, worn state. He hurriedly shut the door behind him as he stepped onto the curb, trying not to glare back at the driver who was currently assailing him with a slew of insults. The vehicle’s tires spun violently on the cracked asphalt before the taxi shot off down the lonesome street.

An otherwise normal looking fellow, the man’s wrinkled shirt and askew, half-made tie detracted from any good-meaning look he may have had about him. He clutched his briefcase tightly at his side, and gave a tentative glance down the street towards the town’s motel. It looked dirtier and danker than the picture in the ad, but it would do.

During the short walk to the lobby’s doors he took a disinterested glance around him. Most buildings on the street held the same aura as the motel, one of old-fashioned, seaside decrepitness. The few that still had paint were chipping badly, and what had once been bright beach colors were faded. It was obvious the fishing village had seen better days. He felt no compassion for it.

The lobby doors swung open with the discordant chime of a bell whose tune had turned sour decades ago. Discolored, shag carpet sharply contrasted with the bright, nostalgic paintings that were hung haphazardly around the room. The tops of the frames were blanketed in dust, and the protective glass smeared with oily fingerprints. Their cheery colors hardly compensated for the other poor decor. The man with the suitcase wiped his feet on the welcome mat that sat just past the door, noticing the little bits of drywall and debris the accented the corners of the lobby. The room emanated a fusty, musty aroma that the man in the suitcase found to congregate around a suspiciously dark patch on the wall. At the other end of the room sat a receptionist’s desk, behind which there was a steep-chinned woman chewing what looked to be some kind of tobacco.

Her lidded eyes shot up at him, then fell to the suitcase at his side. She peered at it as if it must have been a container of contraband, but her gaze was more harsh when focussed on him. Filing away whatever she had been fiddling with beforehand, she pulled out a cracked clipboard, a pen, and a form. The man quickly walked over to the desk, picking up what she had supplied

. He filled out the forms at an even pace, raising an eyebrow at the length of the documents. He left two shoddy signatures where he was required to sign, confused at some of the odd agreements on the paper. But they seemed harmless enough, little tidbits about not wearing shoes in the bedrooms or leaving the faucets on the cold setting after done with them. He spent little time contemplating the peculiar requests, figuring they were by the order of whatever senile coot owned the place. The woman’s words dragged him out of his thoughts.

“ Here’s your key, sir.” She mumbled, glaring at him as if she deemed the man worthy of being deplored. He was taken aback by the look, surprised by such a deliberate expression of detestment. Nonetheless, he flashed a begrudging smile as he plucked the key from her hand, finding it better not to say anything about her off putting behavior. He was competent enough in dealing with less than approachable people. The man fiddled with his wrinkled tie absentmindedly as he exited the lobby, wondering it if was his unruly appearance that had earned him that look.

 

Unkempt shrubbery stretched its near-bare arms over the concrete path beside the motel. Each rooms’ door was painted a pale green, and had cloudy, bronze door knobs. The haggard looking man held the door-key loosely in a fist, approaching the end of the building where the number “14” hung crookedly above a small keyhole. Upon finding himself in front of the door, he noticed the short clusters of lichens that had attached themselves to the wooden lining of the doorframe. Oddly, the grey-blue patches of sprawling plant matter stopped short of the actual door. The wood there was damp and cool, a haven for whatever little growth would have liked to attach itself onto the material. Yet, not even the tell-tale green of algaic slime could be found on it. He fumbled with the key for a moment before slipping it into the small hole, and turning the doorknob.

The room was what was to be expected from such frugal spending on boarding. There was nothing frivolous or fancy about the place. The shag carpeted mirrored the stuff in the lobby, even sporting a suspiciously grotesque mass of black here and there. In the corner was a skinny little dresser topped with a lacey dowley that despite the condition of the place, still maintained its powder white color. The king size bed that was the focal point of the room was covered in a thick, brown comforter that the man knew he didn’t trust enough to sleep under. A plumply stuffed lounging chair covered in thready frills sat adjacent to the dresser, and looked to be the cleanest piece of furniture there. But it in no way complemented the rest of the decor. Or rather, what there was of decor.

Everything looked pathetically bare.

The lack of a tv or fridge was worth a disappointed grimace, but he had expected to be let down. The man entered the room, placing his suitcase on the bed and taking and warrily putting his weight onto the bed. Nothing scurried out from under the sheets, so he went ahead and sat down. Despite the horrible upkeep, the papers in the lobby had guaranteed a full refund if any bed bugs were found in a boarder’s room. He doubted a place so cheap would advertise anything like that if they weren’t confidinate. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about waking up covered in scarlet dots.

Two flips of a lock and the suitcase creaked open. A small pile of files and a black, leather wallet sat inside the cushioned walls. The room’s occupant grabbed the wallet then began fingering through the papers in the suitcase, looking for one, particular document hidden under all the others. After a few papercuts, he found the manilla colored packet he was looking for, and undid the metal clamp keeping it closed. With the other hand he scoured the numerous cards that clustered the leather folds of the wallet, quickly flipping past a driver’s license that bore his picture. He was sporting a lopsided smile in it, feigning what approachable friendliness he could in order to hide the hostile mood he had gained from waiting in the DMV all day.

Beneath the image was his name lazily scrawled in cursive: Mackenzie Cohen. The id disappeared behind a pasta-house gift card in less than a second. He finally found what he was looking for behind an old pharmacist’s receipt and an expired coupon, the folded form of a blue business card that stood out among the rest. He plucked it from the wallet, which he tossed back into the suitcase.

Mackenzie hovered his hand over the manilla packet while he read the tiny letters printed in black ink on the card. “James Hayes - Professional Photographer,” it read. A phone number and business address followed underneath the large heading. He slipped two, wrinkled papers out of the packet on his thigh, scanning the documents’ stiff, typewriter text. The words “Jame Hayes” sat bolded at the top of the page, along with “deceased” to the right of the name. The picture of a frowning twig of a man had been clipped onto the right-hand side of the first paper, along with several dark images of the inside of a bar.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The long night of research, study, and phone calls full of the fallible tales of locals had ended with Mackenzie passed out on top of the bed, impartial to the scattered papers and pens strewn across the comforter. His slumber had been deep, lasting throughout the night and well into the waking hours. It took him nearly a half-hour of drowsy half-awakeness to bolster enough inner strength to drag himself from the bed and into the tile-floored bathroom. As soon as he stepped in, his nose caught a scent of something foul. It was a smell that filled his nose to its brim and permeated throughout the air. A quick look at the unlidded toilet told him he had nothing to fear from there, thank goodness.

No, the musty, moldy, (though not intolerable) odor most certainly originated from the pitch black mass attached to the where the shower met the wall. From the looks of it, the stuff ran rampant in the room, attacking every flaking piece of wallpaper or open crack there was. What was worse than the smell was the eerie feeling he had standing there surrounded by it, as if he had stumbled into a scene he had no business witnessing.

Mackenzie hastened through his morning routine in the bathroom, steering clean of any of the black, fuzzy splotches.

His clothes from the day before still adorned his body when he stepped back out into the main room. He didn’t typically have access to the luxury of a clean new set per day, and this morning was no different. Nonetheless, he felt more confident in his appearance now that he didn’t feel as bad as he had looked the day prior. It was incredible what a cup of mouthwash and shampoo could do to wipe the feeling of uncleanliness from a person’s conscience. He doubted it would do much to quell the irritable look his always had about, but there was no helping that. He slumped back onto the bed to collect his mismatched files from the unruly night before, organizing them the best he could, which was to say not very well.

Once they were shoved back into the suitcase, he strode over to the windows so that the stagnant air within the bedroom might be stirred up into something more tolerable. Despite it being well into the late hours of the morning, no harbinger of the day could be heard when he opened the glass panes. No bird, insect, squirrel, or any other animal announced their presence. Only the branches of the forlorn beachside trees seemed to make a sound as they weakly swayed in the ocean breeze.

Though the temperature inside the room was no more or less than moderate, Mackenzie began to feel dragged down by the air. Despite the gentle breeze that had graced the room, the open window had done little to quell the pungent odor that had seemed to grow in intensity from the night before. It was as if some loitering presence refused to vacate, a malicious force that refused to be simply wafted away. Believing that any further efforts to freshen up the bedroom would be obsolete, he grabbed the suitcase and headed for the door. The spacious room seemed to shrink behind him, but he passed it off as a small, uncharacteristic bout of claustrophobia.

Only moments after shutting the motel door he felt himself falter in a sudden wave of dreariness. He felt stretched, like too little butter over too large a slice of bread. There was a dull ache in his temples and a lead weight in his feet that felt leagues more foreign than it should have. Mackenzie had suffered fevers, flus, hangovers and headaches, but none of them had felt even remotely similar to this. Not in terms of intensity, but how deeply he could sense this sapping sensation within him. It had sunken down from the top of his skin to the marrow of his bones in an instant like some voracious burrowing parasite determined to maim whatever sense of comfort he had left.

A call to retreat back into the dank dwelling behind him arose with the tiring aches, intent on luring him back into the recesses of the room. It was commanding in its insistence, pulling his thoughts towards how terrible he felt, and how nice it would be to stagnate in the musky, strangely blanketing air of the room.

Had he been less sound of mine, he would have said the thoughts had been planted there by a conscience other than his own.

Mackenzie blinked and did his best to push the obstinate urge aside. Staying tucked away in the motel all day like some nocturnal being would lead nowhere, and he had things to do. He hurried down the ill-kept walkway of the motel, trying not to think about the abrupt weakness in his legs. The farther he walked from the room the more he realized that the call in his head was less of a voice, and that it couldn’t truly be called a noise in the conventional sense. It was more of a dark, droning, ...hum.

It was a small blessing that all of the establishments in the town were huddled together, for Mackenzie could profess no love for drawn out walks. Something to quell the mind’s troubles here or there was fine, and the occasional stroll down the block might ease up some long forgotten tension within himself. But he ultimately loathed and was almost pious in his dislike of the state of in betweens a person was in when traveling. In between here and there, now and then, the start and the finish. Anything more than a hop and a skip to his destination put him in a nigh perpetual mood of impatience.

The trip to the pub was satisfyingly quick, as it sat just down the street and to the left from the motel, its back half perilously straddling the rocky seaside. Like most of the places of business around town, it was unashamedly heavy-handed in its prevalence of gimmickyness.

An anchor of prodigious size sat outside the entrance while mermaids clothed in serpentine lengths of seaweed frolicked on the front door. The waves of a placid sea rolled against the entrance’s frame in the form of dull, blue lines that dipped up and down across the whole of the wall. A precariously hung notice at the door announced a limited-time discount for spirits, though the yellowed, laminated paper looked like it had been placed there ages ago. The wooden carvings of seabound creatures felt worn and smooth under his hand as he pushed one of the doors open.

A bell chimed when it closed behind him, and he was greeted by the distinctive aroma of alcohol and bad fish. Three men sat at the bar, speaking of things anyone not familiar with the tides would find painfully unstimulating. He recognized a voice out of the grizzly, gruff pack of men. It was from one of his phone calls from the night before.


End file.
